Baltimore 'Hero Mom' Berates Son for Participating in Riots

And wouldn't you know it, but far-left extremist Joan Walsh goes ballistic over the media's praise for the woman.

At Salon, "The hideous white hypocrisy behind the Baltimore “Hero Mom” hype: How clueless media applause excuses police brutality."

Walsh is a terrible human being.

The mom, on the other hand, deserves the accolades.



More here.

U.S. Sends Commandos Around the World in New Power Projection Strategy

Training local forces to die in the U.S. interest. Actually, that's not particularly novel, although the Obama administration's picked up the pace.

At WSJ, "New Way the U.S. Projects Power Around the Globe: Commandos":

MAO, Chad—“Is this good?” yelled the U.S. Special Forces sergeant. “No!”

He waved a paper target showing the dismal marksmanship of the Chadian commandos he was here to teach. Dozens of bullet holes intended for the silhouette’s vital organs were instead scattered in an array of flesh wounds and outright misses.

The Chadians, with a reputation as fierce desert fighters, were contrite. They dropped to the fine Saharan sand and pounded out 20 push-ups. “Next time, we’re going to shoot all of the bullets here,” one Chadian soldier said, gesturing toward the target’s solar plexus.

Such scenes play out around the world, evidence of how the U.S. has come to rely on elite military units to maintain its global dominance.

These days, the sun never sets on America’s special-operations forces. Over the past year, they have landed in 81 countries, most of them training local commandos to fight so American troops don’t have to. From Honduras to Mongolia, Estonia to Djibouti, U.S. special operators teach local soldiers diplomatic skills to shield their countries against extremist ideologies, as well as combat skills to fight militants who break through.

President Barack Obama, as part of his plan to shrink U.S. reliance on traditional warfare, has promised to piece together a web of such alliances from South Asia to the Sahel. Faced with mobile enemies working independently of foreign governments, the U.S. military has scattered small, nimble teams in many places, rather than just maintaining large forces in a few.

The budget for Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla., which dispatches elite troops around the world, jumped to $10 billion in the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, from $2.2 billion in 2001. Congress has doubled the command to nearly 70,000 people this year, from 33,000 in fiscal 2001. The Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force provide further funding.

Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets, for example, are stationed in the Baltics, training elite troops from Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia for the type of proxy warfare Russia has conducted in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

U.S. forces are also winding down what they consider a successful campaign, begun soon after the Sept. 11 hijackings, to help Filipino forces stymie the al Qaeda-aligned Abu Sayyaf Group. And commanders believe U.S. training of Colombian troops helped turn the tide against rebels and drug traffickers.

At times, U.S. special-operations troops take action themselves, as in the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden in his Pakistani hideout in 2011, or the rescue of freighter Capt. Richard Phillips from Somali pirates in 2009.

U.S. special operators roam the forests of the Central African Republic, alongside Ugandan troops, hunting the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, Joseph Kony . The rebel group, considered a terrorist organization by the U.S., has forcibly recruited children into its ranks.

But the vast majority of special-operations missions involve coaxing and coaching foreign forces to combat extremists the U.S. considers threats.

Driving the idea are 14 years of fighting in Afghanistan, and the on-again-off-again battle in Iraq, expensive land wars that have sapped the political support of many Americans. At the same time, the U.S. faces threats from such free-range terror networks as al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in Mali; al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen; Islamic State in Syria and Iraq; al-Shabaab in Somalia and Boko Haram in Nigeria. Most of these militants have no borders, instead concealing themselves among civilians disaffected with their own corrupt or inept rulers.

The special-operations strategy has a mixed record. The U.S. tried it in Vietnam, only to watch an advisory mission metastasize into a costly, full-scale war. The U.S. put years of training into Mali’s military, which crumbled before the swift advance of al Qaeda and its allies in 2012.

The partnership between U.S. and Yemeni special operators to battle al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was disrupted earlier this year when an anti-American rebel group ousted the U.S.-aligned president.

One skeptic, James Carafano, vice president for defense and foreign policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said relying on special-operations forces was akin to saying, “I’m not going to do brain surgery because I’m going to give you an aspirin. The world doesn’t work that way.”

Commandos can hunt down enemy leaders or train small indigenous units, Mr. Carafano said, but they alone can’t build a capable national army.

The strategy isn’t always flexible enough to meet immediate threats. American efforts to enlist, train and arm moderate Syrian rebels have moved so slowly that some potential allies have given up on Washington. Many have been overrun by the same extremist groups the U.S. sought to defeat.

The three-week military exercises in Chad, which ended last month, are a microcosm of the U.S. strategy. The annual event started small a decade ago, and has grown to include 1,300 troops, with special-operations contingents from 18 Western nations coaching commandos from 10 African countries.

“We have a common threat in the form of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Boko Haram and other extremist organizations that threaten our way of life,” said Maj. Gen. Jim Linder, the outgoing commander of Special Operations Command-Africa.

Still more.

New Poll Shows Majority of Americans Support Religious Freedom

From Dana Loesch:

A new poll released by WPA Opinion Research on behalf of the Family Research Councill shows that the vast majority of Americans support religious liberty in the workplace. Last week saw Governor Mike Pence (R-IN) signing Indiana's "Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” infuriating liberals zealots whom alleged his legislation encouraged discrimination against gays. It's safe to assume these delusional liberal "activists" neglected to even read the bill before taking an extremist stance against it. Yes, these are very the same left wing activists whom accuse Republicans of intolerance.

Unsurprisingly the Obama administration, fueled by Democratic dissolution, is once again executing their big government agenda, stripping away freedoms -- the very same freedoms protected by the Constitution. Last week we witnessed a family restaurant in Indiana, Memories Pizza, threatened and forced into foreclosure after exercising their rights to freedom of religion. Memories Pizza, a family owned restaurant in Indiana, is just one example of several businesses publicly shamed for exercising their American rights. Accusing Memories Pizza employees as homophobic is as outrageous as it is inaccurate. Crystal O’Connor, owner of Memories Pizza attempted to clarify the misunderstanding of his business decisions:

“The news took it totally out of proportion. They lied about it. We said that we would serve anyone that walked in that door, even gays…”But we would not condone a wedding… That’s against our religious beliefs.”

The owners of Memories Pizza are not alone, other companies such as Hobby Lobby and Chick-Fil-A have been targeted by liberal media for discriminating against customers based on their sexual preference.

According to the latest research, these business owners don't stand alone. In a survey of 800 registered voters 81% "agree government should leave people free to follow their own beliefs about marriage as well as live their daily lives at work and the way they run their businesses." Furthermore, 80% of non-religious Americans strongly support freedom to practice one's beliefs.

More.

And see John Nolte, at Big Journalism, "Sorry, Media: Polls Show Majorities Side with Indiana's Christian Pizzeria."

Cited there is the Marist Poll, "Tolerance for Religious Rights."

Once again, here's the reviled Democrat left pushing unpopular mandates to crush the freedom and liberties of Americans in the mainstream. The left can only prevail with lies and coercion. That's it.

America's Academies for Jihad

From Ayaan Hirsi Ali, at the Wall Street Journal, "A radical imam threatened me with death—and was later hired to preach in U.S. prisons. I was surprised, but I shouldn’t have been":

Less than a year after I moved to the United States in 2006, I was asked to speak at the University of Pittsburgh. Among those who objected to my appearance was a local imam, Fouad El Bayly, of the Johnstown Islamic Center. Mr. Bayly was born in Egypt but has lived in the U.S. since 1976. In his own words, I had “been identified as one who has defamed the faith.” As he explained at the time: “If you come into the faith, you must abide by the laws, and when you decide to defame it deliberately, the sentence is death.”

After a local newspaper reported Mr. Bayly’s comments, he was forced to resign from the Islamic Center. That was the last I would hear of him—or so I thought.

Imagine my surprise when I learned recently that the man who threatened me with death for apostasy is being paid by the U.S. Justice Department to teach Islam in American jails.

According to records on the federal site USASpending.gov and first reported by Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller, the Federal Bureau of Prisons awarded Mr. Bayly a $10,500 contract in February 2014 to provide “religious services, leadership and guidance” to inmates at the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Md. Ten months later he received another federal contract, worth $2,400, to provide “Muslim classes for inmates” at the same prison.

This isn’t a story about one problematic imam, or about the misguided administration of a solitary prison. Several U.S. prison chaplains have been exposed in recent years as sympathetic to radical Islam, including Warith Deen Umar, who helped run the New York State Department of Correctional Services’ Islamic prison program for two decades, until 2000, and who praised the 9/11 hijackers in a 2003 interview with this newspaper.

That same year, the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism held hearings on radical Islamic clerics in U.S. prisons. Committee members voiced serious concerns over the vetting of Muslim prison chaplains and the extent of radical Islamist influences. Harley Lappin, director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons at the time, said that “inmates are particularly vulnerable to recruitment by terrorists,” and that “we must guard against the spread of terrorism and extremist ideologies.”

Yet it is not clear what measures—if any—were taken in response to those concerns.

Testifying in 2011 before the House Committee on Homeland Security, Michael P. Downing, head of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Counterterrorism and Special Operations Bureau, said that in 2003 it was estimated that 17%-20% of the U.S. prison population, some 350,000 inmates, were Muslims, and that “80% of the prisoners who convert while in prison, convert to Islam.” He estimated that “35,000 inmates convert to Islam annually.”

Patrick Dunleavy, retired deputy inspector of the Criminal Intelligence Division at the New York State Department of Corrections, said in testimony that prison authorities often rely on groups such as the Islamic Leadership Council or the Islamic Society of North America for advice about Islamic chaplains. Yet those groups can and have referred individuals not suited to positions of influence over prisoners. As Mr. Dunleavy pointedly testified: “There is certainly no vetting of volunteers who provide religious instruction, and who, although not paid, wield considerable influence in the prison Muslim communities.”

The problem isn’t limited to radical clerics infiltrating prisons. Radical inmates proselytize and do their utmost to recruit others to their cause. Once released, they may seek to take their radicalization to the next level...

More.

The New Intolerance

I just don't care to debate these homosexual rights issues so much these days. The left, frankly, is winning. The turning point was the Windsor decision a couple of years ago. The crowning moment will be this June when the high court announces a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. It is what it is.

Unfortunately, with all that comes power to the radical left to discriminate against people of faith. The real hatred and intolerance in America today is found on the extremist secular, Marxist collectivist left. Homosexual rights, especially the homosexual right to same sex marriage, is the nail in the coffin for traditional marriage.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Indiana isn’t targeting gays. Liberals are targeting religion":

In the increasingly bitter battle between religious liberty and the liberal political agenda, religion is losing. Witness the media and political wrath raining down upon Indiana because the state dared to pass an allegedly anti-gay Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The question fair-minded Americans should ask before casting the first stone is who is really being intolerant.

The Indiana law is a version of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) that passed 97-3 in the Senate and that Bill Clinton signed in 1993. Both the federal and Indiana laws require courts to administer a balancing test when reviewing cases that implicate the free exercise of religion.

To wit: Individuals must show that their religious liberty has been “substantially burdened,” and the government must demonstrate its actions represent the least restrictive means to achieve a “compelling” state interest. Indiana’s law adds a provision that offers a potential religious defense in private disputes, but then four federal appellate circuits have also interpreted the federal statute to apply to private disputes.

The federal RFRA followed the Supreme Court’s Employment Division v. Smith ruling in 1990 that abandoned its 30-year precedent of reviewing religious liberty cases under strict scrutiny. Congress responded with RFRA, which merely reasserted longstanding First Amendment protections.

In 1997 the Supreme Court limited RFRA’s scope to federal actions. So 19 states including such cultural backwaters as Connecticut, Rhode Island and Illinois followed with copy-cat legislation, and Indiana is the 20th. Courts in 11 states have extended equally vigorous protections.

Indiana was an outlier before the new law because neither its laws nor courts unambiguously protected religious liberty. Amish horse-drawn buggies could be required to abide by local traffic regulations. Churches could be prohibited from feeding the homeless under local sanitation codes. The state Attorney General even ruled Indiana Wesleyan University, a Christian college which hires on the basis of religion, ineligible for state workforce training grants.

In February, 16 prominent First Amendment scholars, some of whom support same-sex marriage, backed Indiana’s legislation. “General protection for religious liberty is important precisely because it is impossible to legislate in advance for all the ways in which government might burden the free exercise of religion,” they explained.

That hasn’t stopped the cultural great and good from claiming Indiana added the religious defense in private disputes as a way to target gays. If this is Indiana’s purpose, and there’s no evidence it is, this is unlikely to work.

The claim is that this would empower, say, florists or wedding photographers to refuse to work a gay wedding on religious grounds. But under the RFRA test, such a commercial vendor would still have to prove that his religious convictions were substantially burdened.

And he would also come up against the reality that most courts have found that the government has a compelling interest in enforcing antidiscrimination laws. In all these states for two decades, no court we’re aware of has granted such a religious accommodation to an antidiscrimination law. Restaurants and hotels that refused to host gay marriage parties would have a particularly high burden in overcoming public accommodation laws.

In any event, such disputes are rare to nonexistent, a tribute to the increasing tolerance of American society toward gays, lesbians, the transgendered, you name it.

The paradox is that even as America has become more tolerant of gays, many activists and liberals have become ever-more intolerant of anyone who might hold more traditional cultural or religious views...

Yes, that's the paradox, isn't it?

More.

And see Memeorandum.

Chaos! All U.S. Personnel Leave Yemen as Country Descends Into Bloody Anarchy

You know, because the "tide of war is receding," and all that.

At the Los Angeles Times, "U.S. forces leave Yemen amid concerns it is safe haven for terror groups":

All remaining U.S. government personnel withdrew from Yemen over the weekend as fighting erupted near the last safe haven for American special forces there and an Iran-backed militia took control of key locations in the country’s third-largest city.

About 100 American special operations troops evacuated Al Anad airbase in the southern part of Yemen on Saturday, as Al Qaeda militants fought house-to-house in a nearby town. The withdrawal comes a month after the U.S. embassy in the capital of Sana was vacated, after months of Shiite rebels clashing with government forces there.

“Due to the deteriorating security situation in Yemen, the U.S. government has temporarily relocated its remaining personnel out of Yemen,” State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said in a statement.

The U.S. departure from Yemen as it further descends into chaos is likely to hobble the American counterterrorism campaign against two potent extremist groups, the Islamic State and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The Islamic State militants who control large swaths of Iraq and Syria are extending their reach into both North Africa and Yemen, where intelligence officials are concerned they can take advantage of the lawlessness to expand their influence and recruit fighters, as they have elsewhere. And AQAP, the most resourceful and dogged of Al Qaeda's affiliates, has repeatedly used Yemen to plot and stage attacks against the West.

The U.S. plans to continue to fly armed drones over Yemen and strike at leaders of cells plotting to attack Western targets, officials said. But without Americans on the ground and no friendly local intelligence service to turn to for help, the U.S. will have much less information about the location of militant leaders.

More.

The Army's Fort Hood Disgrace

The army's top brass is a disgrace, not the grunts terrorized by Nidal Hasan. And Barack Hussein bears ultimate responsibly. He's virtually a cancer of political correctness ravaging the country.

From Kathy Platoni, at WSJ, "No one who supervised the shooter has been held to account, but the victims are denied pay and benefits":

It was more than five years ago that the gunshots rang out, but those of us who survived can still hear their echoes. On Nov. 5, 2009, an Army psychiatrist named Nidal Hasan—an American radicalized by extremist Islamic beliefs—opened fire on his fellow soldiers in Fort Hood, Texas, killing 14 people, including an unborn child, and wounding 32.

I was there. A beloved friend, Capt. John Gaffaney, died at my knees. I was slated to become the shooter’s direct supervisor and later learned I was at the top of his hit list.

That day has faded from the minds of most Americans. But the survivors and the families of the deceased continually relive its horror. They also continue to face betrayal by the government they served...

A great piece. RTWT.

Islamic State Video Shows Israeli Arab Murdered by Child Jihadi

Another child murderer. They sure start them out young over there.

Watch at BNI, "Latest Islamic State (ISIS) video features a child executing an Israeli Arab, accused of spying for Israel."

And at the Wall Street Journal, "Islamic State Video Purports to Show Israeli Arab Slain by Child":

A new Islamic State video purports to show a child executing an Israeli Arab man accused of spying for Israel.

The more than 13-minute video was released on YouTube by the Islamic State’s propaganda arm, Al Furqan Media. It depicts a lengthy confession by a man who identified himself as Mohammed Said Ismail Musallam from Jerusalem, followed by scenes that show a child holding and firing a handgun edited together with others that appear to show the prisoner being shot in the head.

Emmanuel Nachshon, the spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry, said his government was investigating the authenticity of the video. Israel’s intelligence agency didn’t comment.

Though Islamic State has long expressed enmity toward Israel, Mr. Musallam’s slaying, if confirmed, would mark the first time the Iraq and Syria-based extremist group has been known to have killed an Israeli citizen.

Last month, Israeli newspaper Haaretz published an interview with a man claiming to be Mr. Musallam’s father, Said Musallam, and he said his son wasn’t a spy. The senior Mr. Musallam, who lives in East Jerusalem, said his son had traveled to Islamic State-held territory last fall and had asked for money beforehand on the pretense that he would be studying at a college near Tel Aviv, according to the article.

“He left that morning and the next day, I tried to call him and the telephone was turned off,” Mr. Musallam’s father was quoted as saying. “I thought that maybe he was busy. After a week we got an email that he wanted to be a martyr and he was giving up everything in his life and his family.”

The newspaper quoted the father saying that he later learned that Mr. Musallam had been jailed for trying to escape to Turkey.

The video adds a new twist to Israeli politics only a week before hotly contested general elections, in which hard-line Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has campaigned on a platform of protecting the country from Islamists. Israel has largely stayed out of the conflict. But similar videos from Islamic State have drawn Jordan, Egypt, Britain and the U.S. deeper into the battle.

Tuesday’s video wasn’t the first appearing to show a child killer. Another released by the group in January purported to show a Kazakh child shooting two accused Kazakh spies in the back of the head.

The purported use of a child executioner adds a twist to a propaganda campaign that has repeatedly employed shock tactics to both attract potential recruits and frighten enemies.

Islamic State has released footage showing hostages and accused apostates and traitors shot with handguns and automatic weapons and public crucifixions. Others have been thrown from rooftops, stoned to death, burned alive or decapitated. It is all packaged with Hollywood-quality production values and action-movie flourishes.

The latest video featured a dramatic rendering by the prisoner, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, recounting and acting out his own story in a drawn-out confession. He describes himself as former firefighter in Jerusalem, is shown acting out his Israeli intelligence recruitment, training, deployment and subsequent capture as audio of his confession plays in the background.

More at LAT, "Family of slain Palestinian mourns, denies Islamic State's spy charge."

The Iranian Regime Remains in Power Through Torture and Murder of Its Domestic Critics

From Douglas Feith, at WSJ, "The Fatal Flaw in Obama’s Dealings With Iran":

The Iranian regime is theocratic and revolutionary. It came to power in 1979 on a wave of extremist religious ideology and remains committed to exporting its revolution. Its leaders despise liberalism and democracy. They particularly hate Western respect for the rights of women and homosexuals. The regime remains in power through torture and murder of its domestic critics. It makes frequent use of public executions—the numbers have increased lately even though President Hasan Rouhani is commonly called a reformer.

Abroad, the Iranian regime acts as a rogue. Its agents and terrorist proxies have committed bombings and other murders in countries including France, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Iraq. A U.S. court convicted Iranian agents of plotting in 2011 to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. by bombing a Washington, D.C., restaurant. Iranian officials foment hatred of the U.S. and Israel and call for the annihilation of both.

Iranian leaders have a long record of shameless dishonesty. Their aid to the tyrannical Assad regime has been massive since the Syrian civil war began, but they routinely deny it. And they make a practice of lying to United Nations weapons inspectors. Commenting on how the inspectors have repeatedly been surprised by what Iran hides, Olli Heinonen, former deputy director-general of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency, told this newspaper in 2013, “If there is no undeclared installation today . . . it will be the first time in 20 years that Iran doesn’t have one.”

Iran is a bad actor, and history teaches that constraining bad actors through arms control and peace accords is a losing bet. The arms-control approach is to invite bad actors to sign legal agreements. This produces signing ceremonies, where political leaders can act as if there’s nobody here but us peaceable, law-abiding global citizens. The deal makers get to celebrate their accords at least until the bad actors inevitably violate them.

Nazi Germany violated the Versailles Treaty. The Soviet Union violated the Biological Weapons Convention, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, various nuclear-arms treaties and other international agreements. The Palestine Liberation Organization violated the Oslo Accords. North Korea violated the Agreed Framework.

Patterns emerge from this history. When leaders of democratic countries extract promises of good behavior from bad-actor regimes, those democratic leaders reap political rewards. They are hailed as peacemakers. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was cheered when he returned from Munich in 1938 with “peace in our time.” These leaders have a stake in their deals looking good. When those deals are violated, the “peacemakers” often challenge the evidence. If the evidence is clear, they dismiss the violations as unimportant. When the importance is undeniable, they argue that there aren’t any good options for confronting the violators.

In the end, the bad actors often pay little or nothing for their transgressions. And even if the costs are substantial, they are bearable. Just ask Russia’s Vladimir Putin, or Syria’s Bashar Assad or North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

The Obama administration has wedded itself to a cooperative policy toward Iran. The White House rejects the coercive approach as not viable. But if Iran violates its deal with us, won’t our response have to be coercive? President Obama insists that his policy is the only realistic one. In doing so, he is showing either that he is naïve and uninformed about the relevant history or that he no longer considers an Iranian nuclear weapon “unacceptable.”

America's Terror Recruits

At WSJ, "U.S. Authorities Struggle to Find a Pattern Among Aspiring Islamic State Members":

Federal authorities investigating suspected Islamic State supporters in all 50 states have found no clear pattern to the type of American inspired to try to join the militant group, complicating efforts to thwart terror recruiting.

Some common threads exist, such as the fact that would-be recruits are often in their teens or early 20s and use social media to express support for Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. But overall, the group is broad, covering people who were raised Muslim and those who converted, married and single people, male and female, rich and poor, U.S.-born citizens and recent immigrants.

An estimated 180 Americans have traveled or attempted to travel to the civil war in Syria, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said this week. Not all of those, however, are believed to have joined extremist groups.

“An interesting fact on some of the individuals that we investigate for support to ISIL is the lack of a singular profile,” Michael Steinbach, head of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, said at a congressional hearing last week. “We find citizens, legal permanent resident aliens, some folks that are overstaying their visa. There’s actually quite a diversity of those individuals who for one reason or another state an intent to harm the United States.”

The three Brooklyn men arrested last week for allegedly plotting to support Islamic State were just the latest in a recent string of arrests. Federal authorities have prosecuted almost 30 people in Islamic State-related cases in the past 18 months, according to the Justice Department. The criminal complaints span from California to North Carolina, and the FBI said last week that Islamic State investigations have now been opened in all 50 states.

The motivations for joining Islamic State can vary widely, said Matthew Levitt, director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute, a think tank.

“All kinds of different people are being radicalized,” Mr. Levitt said. “Some are loners seeking more of the belonging and adventure. Some have ethnic-identity issues. Some are drawn to the radical ideology.”

One trait that links some of the cases: Defendants are often teenagers trying to hide their travel plans from their parents.

The mother of 19-year-old Akhror Saidakhmetov, one of the Brooklyn defendants, took his passport away because she was afraid he would travel to Syria to wage jihad, according to a criminal complaint unveiled in Brooklyn federal court last week. After Mr. Saidakhmetov called his mother and repeatedly asked for his passport so that he could join Islamic State, she hung up the phone, the complaint said. An attorney for Mr. Saidakhmetov said his client was awaiting an indictment...

More.

Senior Pentagon Official Warns that Washington Can't Take Technological Dominance for Granted

At Foreign Policy, "Top Intel Official: U.S. Facing ‘Unprecedented’ Array of Threats":

ST. PETE BEACH, Florida — U.S. special operations forces now face a widening array of “non-geopolitical threats” that challenge them in realms in which the United States once held undisputed sway, a senior Pentagon intelligence official said Wednesday.

As an example, Garry Reid, a top deputy to Michael Vickers, undersecretary of defense for intelligence, cited the widespread availability of commercial satellite imagery. “Where once you could assume that only you had the bird’s-eye view of the target area, now just about anybody can have [it],” he said during an address to a gathering of current and former special operations personnel here.

Reid said the proliferation of “quite challenging” commercial encryption capabilities also threatens U.S. dominance in signals intelligence, the difficult act of cracking into phone, Internet, and other forms of telecommunications networks around the world. “It’s not as easy as it once was to exploit adversary communications,” he said.

And without saying so in as many words, Reid suggested that technological advances are making it increasingly difficult for the United States to place intelligence operatives undercover. “Global biometrics, identity management, and the ability to track people [using] your electronic signature around the world becomes a challenge for us,” he said.

In his remarks, Reid led the audience on a global tour of what he described as an “unprecedented” plethora of challenges facing the United States, from the rise of the Islamic State and other violent Islamist extremist groups to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa and Russian aggression against Ukraine. The confluence of so many asymmetrical challenges will continue to place a high demand on U.S. intelligence and special operations forces well into the future, he said.The confluence of so many asymmetrical challenges will continue to place a high demand on U.S. intelligence and special operations forces well into the future, he said.

“We’re sitting on top of the most powerful military arsenal … ever assembled,” he said, but added that most “conventional forces and strategic forces are barely applicable to any of these problems. That is quite a vexing scenario.”

More.

And this is interesting. I've been wondering about the current status of U.S. dominance of some of these areas, especially in light of Barry Posens' 2002 piece, "Command of the Commons."

President Franklin Delano Obama Addresses the Threat of 1930s Violent Extremism

From VDH, at Pajamas:

Imagine Obama as an American president in 1939.

“The United States has made significant gains in our struggle against violent extremism in Europe. We are watching carefully aggressions in Czechoslovakia, Austria, and in Eastern Europe. My diplomatic team has made it very clear that aggression against neighbors is inappropriate and unacceptable. We live in the 20th century, where the 19th century practice of changing borders by the use of force has no place in the present era.

“Let me be perfectly clear: Mr. Hitler is playing to a domestic audience. He adopts a sort of macho shtick, as a cut-up in the back of the class who appeals to disaffected countrymen. Our task is to demonstrate to Mr. Hitler that his current behavior is not really in his own interest, and brings neither security nor profit to Germany.

“As for acts of violence in Germany itself, we must express our worry to the German government over apparent extremism, but at the same time we must not overreact. As far as these sporadic attacks on random civilians, as, for example, during the recent Kristallnacht violence, we must keep things in perspective, when, for example, some terrorists randomly targeted some folks in a store. My job is sort of like a big-city mayor, to monitor these terrorist acts that are said to be done in the name of the German people. Let us not overreact and begin to listen to radio commentators who whip us up into a frenzy as if we were on the verge of war. We must not overestimate the SS, a sort of jayvee organization that remains a manageable problem.

“Here let me just say that we must never fall into the trap of blaming the German people abroad, but especially our German community here at home. National Socialism by no means has anything to do with socialism. These terrorists are desperate for legitimacy, and all of us have a responsibility to refute the notion that groups like the SS somehow represent socialism because that is a falsehood that embraces the terrorist narrative. It is true that America and Germany have a complicated history, but there is no clash of civilizations. The notion that the America would be at war with Germany is an ugly lie.

“So make no mistake about it: National Socialism has nothing to do with Germany or the German people but is rather a violent extremist organization that has perverted the culture of Germany..."

More.

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Says Obama's Extremism Summit a 'Mess'

Yeah, well, Mr. Ambassador, join the club.

At Foreign policy, "Russia's U.N. Ambassador Says Obama's Extremism Summit a 'Mess'":

Despite bitter differences over the fate of Syria and Ukraine, the United States and Russia still agree on one thing: the need to confront violent Islamic extremists from North Africa to the Middle East. But forging a coordinated strategy for combating the scourge has been complicated by the deteriorating state of relations between the Cold War superpowers.

With foreign dignitaries gathered in Washington for President Barack Obama’s conference on extremism, Russia’s U.N. envoy, Vitaly Churkin, denounced what he perceived as the latest American slights against Russia. He accused the United States of failing to seek Moscow and other capitals’ views on the event’s agenda, and said it snubbed Russia’s close allies, including Serbia, which was not invited to the conference.

“The United States believes in its exceptionalism and it has to say at every corner that the United States is going to lead,” Churkin said. “Fine, I’m prepared to listen to those statements if they want to position themselves this way.… What the hell.”

He added: “But they should not proceed from this premise in their relations with Russia and China, really, because they should take advantage of our willingness to cooperate.”

The Russian diplomat also offered a not-so-subtle warning that Russia’s cooperation on matters of vital importance to Washington, like the Iranian nuclear negotiations, should not be taken for granted. “Russia is a very responsible member” of the international community, said Churkin, noting that Moscow had worked very hard to have the Iranian nuclear talks succeed. “It would not take much for Russia to do some mischief in those talks, to make agreement even more difficult.”...



A week ago, Russia championed the passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution aimed at helping to strangle the ability of the Islamic State and al Qaeda to raise money through the sale of oil, gas, and antiquities and the kidnapping of hostages. Following the vote, Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, voiced strong U.S. support for the resolution in remarks to the council. But she made no mention of Moscow’s contribution, and instead took a swipe at Russia and China for blocking an earlier resolution that would have subjected Syrian leaders to the International Criminal Court.

Churkin accused the United States of pushing the United Nations to the sidelines, saying the international body should be the one that is leading in countering extremism.

America’s insistence on staking out a leadership role in the fight against terrorism would only embolden jihadis to take up the fight, Churkin said. It will “attract the extremists, you know, to fight that American-led coalition,” he said.

He also complained that while the Obama administration claims to be launching a broad international fight against extremists, it “did not consult us” about the substance of the meeting. “Originally, they did not even invite us,” Churkin said.

He lambasted the White House for inviting envoys from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to the counter-extremist event but ignoring Serbia, which currently chairs the group. Meanwhile, he said, Kosovo was asked to participate, even though it is not a member of the U.N.

And though Russia is eager to work with the United States on battling extremism, Churkin had low expectations on what the White House conference would yield. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s going to produce a mess,” he said.

The U.S. mission to the United Nations and the State Department did not respond to requests for comment on Churkin’s remarks.

The United States did invite a delegation from Russia, which was headed by Moscow’s top spy, Alexander Bortnikov, the director of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), Russia’s modern-day KGB.

The three-day meeting began Tuesday with a focus on the domestic threat of extremism in the United States, and shifted on Thursday to the international effort to combat terrorism. Speaking Thursday morning at the State Department before representatives of more than 60 countries, President Obama painted a grim portrait of a world buffeted by terrorism...

Radical Leftists Pulling the Leftist Democrats Further Left -- And Further Away from Middle America

From Selena Zito, at the Pittsburgh Tribune, "Extreme-left Dems pushing Middle America away":

Tim Ryan — a once-strident champion of the Rust Belt city of Youngstown, filled with moderate Catholic Democrats whose issues are still firmly pocketbook-based — penned an op-ed saying he now supports abortion.

The Ohio congressman, who once sat on the board of the Democrats for Life in America advocacy group, made that surprising reversal as he contemplates a run for U.S. Senate.

You see, plenty of Jacksonian Democrats remain in his district — and all across the country, for that matter — but no tolerance for them exists in the Washington-based national Democratic Party.

No money exists for them from elite progressive funders, either.

Ryan's decision opens up the floodgates for campaign cash from national Democrats' purses, now that he shed that old-fashioned tie to his moral compass.

And groups such as Emily's List, Planned Parenthood and NARAL, which are funding spigots for Democrats, can deploy that cash and those all-important volunteers to help Ryan win whatever office he seeks.

It was a spigot that was never opened to him before his departure from the blue-collar ideals he brought to office in 2004.

“It always strikes me as funny that the folks on TV call Republicans ‘extreme,' and pretty much ignore that Democrats have left no room for people like me in my own party,” said Yvonne, a Youngstown native who did not want to give her last name.

To Yvonne, who has lived all of her 30-plus years in that eastern Ohio city, being a Democrat is like listing your religion, the part of town where you grew up, and the school you attended.

“It's a part of my identity,” she said, adding after a pause: “Or was.”

When Ryan made his announcement last week, the national press offered no questions or headline-grabbing adjectives — just praise.
That was an interesting departure from the media reaction when then-candidate Cory Gardner, a Colorado congressman running for U.S. Senate last year, changed from support to non-support of “personhood.”

“Bombshell,” “extremist” and “cheap election-year stunt” were the words in some of the milder headlines.

Gardner moved to the center. Ryan moved to the left wing.

Ryan was praised. Gardner was hammered.

Now think about that for a moment: One politician moved to his party's wing, not its center, and it was as if a tree fell in a forest — with no one listening. Another politician moved to his party's center, and hair collectively caught fire.

Just five years ago, 110 pro-life Democrats were in the House, around a dozen in the U.S. Senate. Today, fewer than five are in the House, and two in the Senate.

Just five years ago, coincidentally, Democrats held majorities in both chambers.

They lost those majorities because they lost touch with their districts.

Yes, gerrymandering played a part. Yet that is far from the whole story, a story no one talks about — or, if they do, they don't address the problem. The fact is, Democrats are losing or excluding evangelicals, blue-collar types, Jacksonians and moderates, not only from feeling welcome in the party but from filling the Democrat bench to run for or to hold local offices.

That is happening not just in Ohio but all across the country...

The Democrats are the party of Anti-America, from the president on down to the local level. Amazing, though, how they're backed through and through by the America-hating "mainstream" media.

Up is down these days. God help us.

Still more.

President Obama Speaks at the Summit on Countering Violent Extremism

Oh boy. It's terrible.

Here, at the White House YouTube page.

And snippets at AP, "Obama: 'We Are Not at War With Islam'."

Obviously, Obama's problem is that Islamic State is not pushing "a twisted interpretation of religion." Indeed, as Graeme Wood writes at the cover story at the latest Atlantic:

The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic. Yes, it has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely from the disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe. But the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam.

We can agree that there are different interpretations of Islam, but it's simply absurd to argue that Islamic State --- or al-Qaeda itself --- is practicing a "twisted interpretation."

And if you listen long enough at the video, you'll see that Obama eventually gets to the heart of the leftist-collectivist agenda for supposedly "countering violent extremism": purportedly combating the alleged "legitimate grievances" of Islamists with ever-expanding big-government programs. Recall that this initiative is predicated on lies: "The 'Jobs for Jihad Delinquents' Program."


Anyway, FWIW, there's more at the Los Angeles Times, "Obama calls for global effort against spread of extremist ideas."

Egypt Launches Airstrikes After Islamic State Posts Beheading Video

At USA Today, "Egypt launches airstrikes against ISIL in Libya":

Egypt launched airstrikes against Islamic State targets in neighboring Libya on Monday, hours after militants there released a video purporting to show the mass beheading of Egyptian Christian hostages.

A spokesman for the Armed Forces General Command announced the strikes on state radio, and said they were "to avenge the bloodshed and to seek retribution from the killers," the Associated Press reported.

The statement said the warplanes targeted weapons caches and training camps before returning safely. "Let those far and near know that Egyptians have a shield that protects them," it said.

It marks the first time Cairo has publicly acknowledged taking military action in Libya, where extremist groups seen as a threat to both countries have taken root in recent years.

A spokesman for Libyan Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni told the BBC that Egyptian jets had taken part in coordinated airstrikes on the militant-held city of Derna. Libya's air force commander, Saqr al-Joroushi, told Egyptian state TV that about 50 militants were killed.

Derna was taken over by an Islamic State affiliate last year.

Two Libyan security officials said civilians, including three children and two women, were killed in the strikes. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Meanwhile, Bahrain said it deployed fighter planes to Jordan, a day after it announced plans to send troops to the kingdom.

Bahrain and Jordan are part of the U.S.-led coalition carrying out airstrikes against the Islamic State, also known as ISIL and ISIS.

On Sunday, a video purporting to show the mass beheading of the hostages by militants in Libya claiming loyalty to ISIL was posted on social media. On Twitter, several accounts distributed links to the video carrying the title, "A Message Signed With Blood To The Nation Of The Cross."

Militants in Libya had been holding 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians hostage for weeks, threatening them with death. The makers of the video identify themselves as the Tripoli Province of the Islamic State group — the Islamic militant group that controls about a third of Syria and Iraq.

The video shows a line of men dressed in orange jumpsuits forced onto their knees and beheaded.

The Egyptian government and the Coptic Church based in Egypt both declared the video authentic. Egypt banned all travel to Libya by its citizens in response.

Omar el-Hussein Released from Prison Just Two Weeks Ago — #CopenhagenAttacks

Shoot, forget the rehab.

Just go through the incarceration motions for a week or two, them blam! Back out on the streets!

At Telegraph UK, "Copenhagen suspect 'was released from prison two weeks ago'":

Copenhagen terror attack suspect named as 22-year-old Omar el-Hussein, who 'had violent past'.

Terror returned to Europe at the weekend when a suspected Islamist extremist gunned down two people in separate attacks on a Copenhagen café and a synagogue before being killed by police in a predawn shoot-out on Sunday.

The dead suspect, named on Sunday night as Omar el-Hussein, had reportedly been released from prison two weeks ago after serving a two-year sentence for grievous bodily harm.

In a rampage with parallels to the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris five weeks earlier, the 22-year-old Danish-born assailant fired around 40 shots at a free speech debate in an arts café on Saturday afternoon, killing a 55-year-old documentary filmmaker, Finn Norgaard.

After fleeing in a stolen car, the gunman went on to target a girl's bat mitzvah party at Copenhagen's main synagogue at one o'clock on Sunday morning, shooting dead Dan Uzan, 37, an economist at the Danish treasury, who was acting as a volunteer security guard.

The gunman was then later killed after a shoot-out with police at a train station in central Copenhagen. Up to four other people were being held by police on Sunday night following raids across the country.

As with the Charlie Hebdo attackers, the head of the Danish security and intelligence service, Jens Madsen, said on Sunday that the gunman had been identified as a potential threat.

"He was on the radar but he was not known to have travelled to conflict areas like Iraq or Syria," Mr Madsen said. "We cannot yet say anything concrete about the motive ... but we are considering that he might have been inspired by the events in Paris," he told a news conference.

Police traced the killer from CCTV footage from the arts café attack, which showed him abandoning his getaway car, a stolen Volkswagen Polo, and taking a taxi. They questioned the driver, and went to the address in the mainly immigrant area of Norrebro where he had dropped off the suspect.

The gunman had left again by the time police arrived at his home, near the railway station, and went on to attack the synagogue. When he returned around 5am, police tried to apprehend him but shot him dead after he opened fire on them.

In an indication that the gunman may have had accomplices, four people were arrested when a dozen armed police raided an internet café in central Copenhagen. Among the four were a Pakistani and an Arab, according to Danish media reports.

Witnesses at both attacks said further killings were only averted by the swift intervention of the police, who have been on high alert in the Danish capital since the Paris shootings...

Still more.

More Foreign Fighters Traveling to Syria to Join Civil War

At WSJ, "Counterterrorism Officials Worry Fighters Could Carry out Attacks When They Return Home":

WASHINGTON—The number of foreign fighters traveling to Syria to join in the country’s civil war is increasing despite months of bombardment by the U.S. and its allies, stoking worries among counterterrorism officials they could carry out attacks when they return home.

Officials from the National Counterterrorism Center, Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation plan to tell the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday that more than 150 U.S. citizens or permanent residents have traveled or attempted to travel to Syria to join extremist groups. Previously, officials had said about 100 Americans had fallen into that category. They are part of a larger group of 3,400 Westerners who have traveled or attempted to travel to Syria, the officials plan to say.

Meanwhile, more than 20,000 foreign fighters from over 90 countries have traveled to Syria, according to prepared testimony by Nicholas Rasmussen, the Counterterrorism Center’s director. That is up from previous U.S. estimates of about 19,000 foreign fighters.

The rate of fighters traveling to Syria is unprecedented, exceeding the rate of such travel to conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen or Somalia, Mr. Rasmussen plans to tell the committee.

The Roots of Obama's Appeasement

From Victor Davis Hanson, at National Review:

Members of the Obama administration have insisted that the Taliban are not terrorists. Those responsible for the recent Paris killings are not radical Islamists. The Muslim Brotherhood is largely secular. Jihad is a “legitimate tenet of Islam.” And “violent extremism,” “workplace violence,” or “man-caused disaster” better describe radical Islamic terrorism. Domestic terrorism is just as likely caused by returning U.S. combat veterans, according to one report by a federal agency.

What is the point of such linguistic appeasement?

The word “appeasement” long ago became pejorative for giving in to bullies. One side was aggressive and undemocratic; the other consensual and eager to avoid trouble through supposedly reasonable concessions.

But appeasement usually weakened the democratic side and empowered the extremist one.

The architect of appeasement — for example, Neville Chamberlain, former prime minister of Great Britain — was predictably a narcissist. Chamberlain believed that his own powers of oratory, his insights into reason, and his undeniably superior morality would sway even a thug like Adolf Hitler.

President Obama currently is convinced that his singular charisma and rare insight into human nature will convince the Taliban to peacefully participate in Afghan politics. Obama will supposedly also win over the Iranian theocracy and show it how nonproliferation is really to everyone’s advantage.

“Reset” diplomacy with Putin was supposed to lessen tensions — if, after the 2012 election, Putin just had more exposure to a flexible statesman of Obama’s wisdom.

Throughout history, without the vanity of the conceder, there would never have been appeasement.

Appeasement also always subordinates the interests of vulnerable third parties to the appeaser’s own inflated sense of self. When Chamberlain and the French prime minister Edouard Daladier signed the 1938 Munich Pact, they worried little about the fate of millions of Czechs who lost their country — and less about millions of Poles who were next in line for Hitler’s Blitzkrieg.

Reset diplomacy with Russia in 2009 was not much concerned about the ensuing danger to Crimeans or Ukrainians. When the Taliban takes over, hundreds of thousands of reformist Afghans will die.

Obama sees a deal with Iran as a way to cement his legacy as a breakthrough statesman. In comparison, the long-term consequences of a nuclear Iran on the security of tiny Israel or on the stability of the largely Sunni Arab Middle East are future and more abstract concerns for others.

Even major concessions never satisfy aggressive powers. It is a traditional Western liberal delusion — brought on by our wealth, leisure, and the good life — that autocrats appreciate magnanimity rather than see it as timidity to be exploited further...

More.

Islamic State Claims U.S. Hostage, Kayla Mueller, Killed in Airstrike

At the Los Angeles Times, "Jordanian airstrike kills U.S. hostage, purported militant statement says":

A purported statement from Islamic State militants said Friday that a Jordanian airstrike had killed an American aid worker who was being held hostage in the northeast Syrian city of Raqqa, an extremist stronghold.

There was no immediate confirmation of the report from Washington or means of verifying whether the militant claim was true.

In a message posted on social media, Islamic State purportedly declared that midday “crusader” airstrikes on Raqqa resulted in the death of the hostage. The post also gave the woman’s name, email address, phone number and a home address in Arizona.

It had been publicly known for months that a U.S. aid worker identified by the militants as Kayla Jean Mueller was being held.

News media had withheld Mueller's name out of concern for her safety. The 26-year-old woman did not appear in any of the hostage videos that Islamic State released in recent months.

“The crusader criminal air force struck a site outside of Raqqa city today at noon during Friday prayers, and the strikes lasted for one hour,” the purported Islamic State message said. “And we have confirmed the death of the American hostage by the bombs that fell on the site.”

In the purported post, Islamic State blamed the woman’s asserted death on the Jordanian air force, which has reportedly been conducting airstrikes on Islamic State targets in recent days.

“The losing Jordanian Air Force kills an American hostage,” read the headline of the message, sent via a Twitter account associated with Islamic State.

The group also posted a photograph of a bombed-out building compound identified as the site where the woman had been held. The message said nothing about other victims...

 More. (Also at Memorandum.)

Various reports have questioned the authenticity of Islamic State's claim, although Jordan today did indeed conduct airstrikes on ISIS jihadis inside Syria. See USA Today, "Jordan pounds Islamic State targets inside Iraq, Syria."